Golan Heights is key and tenuous issue in truce

June 22, 2008|By Ashraf Khalil Los Angeles Times

JERUSALEM — With a new truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Jewish state still is reaching out to longtime adversaries and grappling with a number of difficult, domestically unpopular negotiations.

One key issue faced by Israeli diplomats is both straightforward and highly sensitive. Syria wants the Golan Heights, captured by Israel in 1967, returned in exchange for peace.

Analysts believe that giving up the Golan, regarded by Israelis as a beloved vacation spot and a crucial strategic asset, could fundamentally alter the regional equation.

The change, they say, could result in less Iranian influence over Syria, less animosity between Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, which receives support from Syria and Iran, and a stronger peace agreement with Hamas, whose senior leadership mostly lives in Damascus, the Syrian capital.

"It's a move to break the Damascus-Tehran-Hezbollah front, and Syria is the weakest part of that chain," said Anat Kurz, director of research at the Institute for National Security Studies, an Israeli think tank.

Israeli diplomats also continue to conduct direct talks with the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank while Hamas rules Gaza, although little progress has been seen in recent months toward an independent Palestinian state.

Indirect peace talks with Syria exist under Turkish mediation, and talks with Hezbollah over a prisoner exchange appear to be making headway. On Wednesday, Israel publicly offered direct negotiations with the new Lebanese government, in which Hezbollah is a crucial player.

The flurry of Israeli diplomatic activity comes amid domestic turmoil for embattled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and as U.S. influence in the region is waning in the final months of the Bush administration.

Some of the recent initiatives - particularly the Hamas truce, which took effect Thursday, and the Syria talks - are departures from the once-unified Israeli-U.S. strategy to confront regional adversaries with diplomatic isolation and the threat of force.

The shift toward negotiations in both cases might indicate an Israeli conclusion that the previous hard-line approach had not produced results. A senior Israeli government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the various tracks of diplomatic talks weren't part of an overall strategy of multilateral engagement but were based on case-by-case developments that favored diplomacy.

U.S. officials have been openly supportive of the Gaza truce and more circumspect regarding the Israel-Syria talks. But both represent an Israeli break from Bush administration doctrine.

In Gaza, more than a year of virtual siege failed to dislodge Hamas, which won parliamentary elections in 2006 and later routed its rival Fatah faction to take full control of the impoverished coastal sliver.

Olmert faced growing clamor to end the near-daily rocket attacks on southern communities by Gaza's extremist groups, but a large-scale reoccupation of the densely packed strip could have proved complicated and bloody.

Observers also said Olmert needed some good news to deflect from his list of domestic woes: an ongoing corruption investigation and mounting signs of rebellion from within his ruling coalition.